Tuesday, 2 August 2011

Finger Fancies

One of the many things that I picked up on from the Autumn/Winter 2011 runway was that this season it was the nail that was gripping the fashion forward.

The Dalmatian spots of Topshop’s canine-inspired show and the metallic talons that permeated others showed that the cutesy craze starting with the designs of Sophy Robson’s displayed in last season’s Leowe show has undergone a transformation.

Now there was a certain unabashed outrageousness and light-hearted fun that centred on the manicurist’s canvas.

The fad became particularly apparent to me when I saw Katy Perry’s tribute to the Royal Wedding in April which only made me love the hilariously cheesy celeb more:

A snapshot of darling Wills on each talon documenting a different point in his life... Oh K-Pez, only you.

But it seems that over the last few months this trend has got so big that I cannot ignore it.

I hadalways thought that bright nails were a bit tacky if I am being honest, preferring to stay with the safety of a nude, plum or red on my own delicate nails. Not through any sort of manicure snobbery but solely due to the fact that every time a bottle of wine was involved and my varnish obsessed friend was about I’d be forced into donning my nails in the brightest shade of Bazza M’s Coral. Thinking this was a brilliant idea at the time I’d awake the next morning with a stonking hangover and ten of the most glaring headaches blaring from my own fingers, which had been transformed into witchlike tendrils upon my placid skin.

Needless to say, I wasn’t a fan.

However trawling through the net for examples of nail art I have decided that nails canactually be a massive laugh. Some of the more hilarious taking I-pod Nanos to an even more ridiculously tiny level, die-hard fans of the nineties repping the Pokemon phenomenon which I rather mistakenly thought had passed with my own puberty, and my favourite, the sexy Aztecs.

Rather than looking like a techno freak or an Aztec on Acid I think I will probably stick with the more classic manicure but rather than scratching the walls with my own as I expected, my respect for nails has definitely increased.